8 ms·

Banning substances one after another has proven to be quite useless or even damaging approach. Another, less studied and potentially worse chemical compound wil

Banning substances one after another has proven to be quite useless or even damaging approach. Another, less studied and potentially worse chemical compound will always substitute the banned ones. It’s an endless game of whack a mole to keep banning a substance for next random one to spawn. More correct approach might be that if you want to use a chemical in food packaging or children’s equipment, you must first do long-term studies that prove its relative safety to other studied compounds. In time the world would start accumulating safer products. I won’t hold my breath though.

jpgvm 4y ago
Exactly, they need to switch to a whitelisted approach.
- euroderf 4y ago
  I've read that this is the EU's approach, altho I don't know how it works out in practice.
  - gruez 4y ago
    The downside is that novel technologies (eg. GMOs) take forever to get approved.
    - pwdisswordfish9 4y ago
      How is that a bad thing?
      - pragmatic 4y ago
        People starving to death in the mean time, perhaps?
        suture 4y ago
        As a result of GMOs the carrying capacity of the world increased. Isn’t it the case that the population tends toward the carrying capacity? If so then the delay of GMOs would only mean that the world’s population today would be lower and not that the amount of overall starvation would be higher. We still have episodes of starvation in the world even with GMOs.
        gruez 4y ago
        >As a result of GMOs the carrying capacity of the world increased. Isn’t it the case that the population tends toward the carrying capacity? This model assumes that human population will grow forever. Carrying capacity is one constraint on total population, but it's not the only constraint. Nowadays population growth is slowing down because demographic factors (ie. falling fertility), not because we've reached the earth's carrying capacity and famines are killing people off.
        suture 4y ago
        Sure, those factors come into play and are dominant. It seems to me that one can’t assume there would have been more starvation had GMOs not been invented. And the factors you mentioned haven’t yet had an effect in India and Africa. The population of there has greatly increased alongside the rise of GMO. I’m not saying GMOs are the cause of sad increase but I am suggesting that the population in India and Africa might have been lower today without GMOs without being the result of starvation.
        jpgvm 4y ago
        People in the EU aren't starving to death though. Appropriate laws for appropriate circumstances. Given high standard of living in EU they can afford to take the long road with many improvements to food security favoring safety over reduced cost or expediency.
        euroderf 4y ago
        The problem is not a shortage of food. The problem is its distribution. Like many things.
    - manuelabeledo 4y ago
      Which makes sense. New technologies should be approached using a precautionary principle.
      - gruez 4y ago
        >New technologies should be approached using a precautionary principle. But what happens in reality is: When we apply the precautionary principle, it's because technology is dangerous and The Responsible Thing to Do is to be careful. When our opponents apply the precautionary principle, they're luddites who hate change and just want an excuse to drag their feet. Here are some examples to illustrate that effect * nuclear power * vaccines * self-driving cars/AI * gmo
        GekkePrutser 4y ago
        Nuclear power was plenty dangerous in its first iterations and there was in fact too little precaution. Chernobyl and three mile Island really shouldn't have happened. Fukushima was much later in the game but was also bad design. I think the tech is safer now but the nuclear industry really has itself to blame. It's no wonder anti-nuclear sentiments increased after each disaster. With the other ones I agree more.
        adhesive_wombat 4y ago
        > Chernobyl and three mile Island really shouldn't have happened. Fukushima was much later in the game but was also bad design. Fukushima was an older reactor then Chernobyl, by 6 years (commissioned 1971 vs 1977). Very old nuclear reactors are common partly because it's been politically untenable to build new ones, even if the new ones are safer.
        GekkePrutser 4y ago
        Ok I did not know that, but I thought Chernobyl was already an old design when it was commissioned?
- jjoonathan 4y ago
  What's your plan to ensure the whitelist is responsibly curated? My guess: it'll either have everything on it, or every N years we'll get a new brand of government mandated Asbestos Free Cereal. No thanks.
  - jpgvm 4y ago
    Same plan we use for drugs. Test if it's safe, if it's safe we allow it's use, if not we don't. Initially it will probably need to grandfather stuff in but having a whitelist will make it easier to ensure unsafe things aren't replaced by even worse things.
    - kongolongo 4y ago
      The problem is you can't practically do that for many compounds either because of ethical reasons or because it would take far too long and would in the mean time impede progress significantly. Take plastics for example, they're as acutely non-toxic as you can get you're not having any readily measurable adverse health outcomes from handling it, touching it, and even consuming foods directly in contact with it. And yet there are still things we would have missed even if we adopted this whitelisting approach. We would have never captured the problem of microplastics that we see today, the mechanical and chemical breakdown of plastics in the environment leading to far higher consumption and presence of it in our bodies could not have realistically been studied or predicted even if we took a whitelisting approach. Now you have to consider what the effects of whitelisting everything would mean for productivity and progress. Imagine how much more everyday things would cost if plastics had to be whitelisted before being allowed in any products. Even now knowing about the existence of microplastics, it isn't clear that the effects they have decisively outweigh the benefits of plastics.
      - jpgvm 4y ago
        First of all I am mostly talking about plastics in the context of food packaging. I would be more inclined to agree with your argument regarding progress/innovation if there were more novel plastics coming to the market for food packaging but that isn't really the case and there hasn't been anything ground-breaking since PET. Whitelisting at this stage of maturity isn't just the right thing to do, it's also easy and beats playing whackamole if you decide something needs to get phased out.
- refurb 4y ago
  Then what you end up with is Prop 65 - everything causes cancer. The right response is a risk-based approach. Nothing is every 100% safe, so it's not a reasonable filter. Basically each new product should be judged for the risk versus the benefit. If it can be easily substituted with a known safer product, then it's forced to go through testing. If there is no known substitute and the benefit is high, then it can tentatively be approved with follow up tests later.
ravenstine 4y ago
I guess we should never have outlawed the addition of lead to gasoline?
- corrral 4y ago
  That's an element. These are compounds. There are a lot more compounds than elements, and it's a lot easier to find one you can sub in to do the same thing. (yes, the lead in gasoline was part of a particular molecule, too—which just proves my point, if we'd outlawed the specific molecule/compound that would have opened the door to finding other technically-different ones that still included lead—but you can't exactly outlaw carbon, so that approach won't work this time)
  - ravenstine 4y ago
    That's really moving the goal posts. Who's to say the fuel industry couldn't have chosen a different substance that's poisonous in some other way? It's fundamentally the same argument. Lead being a universally poisonous element just made the decision easy. I agree that bans can and probably often do backfire, but it's not as simple as either never banning things or instead whitelisting things to be allowed.
    - corrral 4y ago
      It's not moving the goalposts, the two actions are meaningfully different. Lead is basically always dangerous, so "no lead" is an easy call and has the desired effect. The lead, specifically, was causing the entire problem, and it'll keep doing so pretty much no matter how you arrange other elements around it. Some other compounds to replace it might be dangerous, but essentially every lead compound is going to be dangerous. Carbon compounds, meanwhile, are practically endless and there's no one quality you can point to and say "that, that right there is the problem, ban that part". Piecemeal bans won't work.
    - samatman 4y ago
      They did actually, it's called MTBE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_tert-butyl_ether#Regulation_and_litigation_in_the_U.S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_tert-butyl_ether#Regula....
georgia_peach 4y ago
There was a time--not too long ago actually--when the standards were waxed paper, parchment paper, and glass. Paper being biodegradable, glass being highly inert, and neither causing as much ecological devastation or endocrine disruption as plastic. So technically speaking, it's a solved problem. But from a market perspective, for the people who eat the glyphosate-dusted insulin resistance that's wrapped inside the plastic, i'm willing to bet the pseudoestrogens are the least of their worries.
- suture 4y ago
  The future will look unkindly at our present day pursuit of profits whilst ignoring negative externalities.
- kongolongo 4y ago
  When those materials were the standard we also didn't have a lot of the medical and technological equipment today that arguably reduced both mortality and morbidity across large swaths of a much, much larger population. Plastics are used widely in electronics and all of the accompanying tech improvements too it isn't just simple as packaging, so it isn't a "solved problem" if you want to go back to those materials and replace everything plastic has become standard for in today's technologies.
  - georgia_peach 4y ago
    What does "pthalates in food packaging" have to do with medicine or technology? For food it is a solved problem. Also, #1 contribution to life expectancy has been public hygiene. Aside from antibiotics, all of the other medical interventions have been noise. https://sjbpublichealth.org/200-years-public-health-doubled-life-expectancy/ https://sjbpublichealth.org/200-years-public-health-doubled-... > the largest gain in life expectancy occurred between 1880 and 1920 due to public health improvements such as control of infectious diseases, more abundant and safer foods, cleaner water, and other nonmedical social improvements
  - georgia_peach 4y ago
    The plastics, which might as well be considered solidified gasoline, are also a tremendous hazard in home furnishings[0]. The flame-retardants slow the burn a little, but still highly combustible compared to traditional materials. The science is pointing the finger at the same flame retardants for raising cancer rates among firefighters around 10% higher than the general population[1,2]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87hAnxuh1g8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87hAnxuh1g8 [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8403436/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8403436/ [2] https://www.sffcpf.org/news-post-2/ https://www.sffcpf.org/news-post-2/
Vladimof 4y ago
They could ban all additives except approved ones...
bcrl 4y ago
It's almost as if you want to remove externalities from the food supply chain...

jpgvm 4y ago

Exactly, they need to switch to a whitelisted approach.

euroderf 4y ago
I've read that this is the EU's approach, altho I don't know how it works out in practice.
- gruez 4y ago
  The downside is that novel technologies (eg. GMOs) take forever to get approved.
  - pwdisswordfish9 4y ago
    How is that a bad thing?
    - pragmatic 4y ago
      People starving to death in the mean time, perhaps?
      - suture 4y ago
        As a result of GMOs the carrying capacity of the world increased. Isn’t it the case that the population tends toward the carrying capacity? If so then the delay of GMOs would only mean that the world’s population today would be lower and not that the amount of overall starvation would be higher. We still have episodes of starvation in the world even with GMOs.
        gruez 4y ago
        >As a result of GMOs the carrying capacity of the world increased. Isn’t it the case that the population tends toward the carrying capacity? This model assumes that human population will grow forever. Carrying capacity is one constraint on total population, but it's not the only constraint. Nowadays population growth is slowing down because demographic factors (ie. falling fertility), not because we've reached the earth's carrying capacity and famines are killing people off.
        suture 4y ago
        Sure, those factors come into play and are dominant. It seems to me that one can’t assume there would have been more starvation had GMOs not been invented. And the factors you mentioned haven’t yet had an effect in India and Africa. The population of there has greatly increased alongside the rise of GMO. I’m not saying GMOs are the cause of sad increase but I am suggesting that the population in India and Africa might have been lower today without GMOs without being the result of starvation.
      - jpgvm 4y ago
        People in the EU aren't starving to death though. Appropriate laws for appropriate circumstances. Given high standard of living in EU they can afford to take the long road with many improvements to food security favoring safety over reduced cost or expediency.
      - euroderf 4y ago
        The problem is not a shortage of food. The problem is its distribution. Like many things.
  - manuelabeledo 4y ago
    Which makes sense. New technologies should be approached using a precautionary principle.
    - gruez 4y ago
      >New technologies should be approached using a precautionary principle. But what happens in reality is: When we apply the precautionary principle, it's because technology is dangerous and The Responsible Thing to Do is to be careful. When our opponents apply the precautionary principle, they're luddites who hate change and just want an excuse to drag their feet. Here are some examples to illustrate that effect * nuclear power * vaccines * self-driving cars/AI * gmo
      - GekkePrutser 4y ago
        Nuclear power was plenty dangerous in its first iterations and there was in fact too little precaution. Chernobyl and three mile Island really shouldn't have happened. Fukushima was much later in the game but was also bad design. I think the tech is safer now but the nuclear industry really has itself to blame. It's no wonder anti-nuclear sentiments increased after each disaster. With the other ones I agree more.
        adhesive_wombat 4y ago
        > Chernobyl and three mile Island really shouldn't have happened. Fukushima was much later in the game but was also bad design. Fukushima was an older reactor then Chernobyl, by 6 years (commissioned 1971 vs 1977). Very old nuclear reactors are common partly because it's been politically untenable to build new ones, even if the new ones are safer.
        GekkePrutser 4y ago
        Ok I did not know that, but I thought Chernobyl was already an old design when it was commissioned?
jjoonathan 4y ago
What's your plan to ensure the whitelist is responsibly curated? My guess: it'll either have everything on it, or every N years we'll get a new brand of government mandated Asbestos Free Cereal. No thanks.
- jpgvm 4y ago
  Same plan we use for drugs. Test if it's safe, if it's safe we allow it's use, if not we don't. Initially it will probably need to grandfather stuff in but having a whitelist will make it easier to ensure unsafe things aren't replaced by even worse things.
  - kongolongo 4y ago
    The problem is you can't practically do that for many compounds either because of ethical reasons or because it would take far too long and would in the mean time impede progress significantly. Take plastics for example, they're as acutely non-toxic as you can get you're not having any readily measurable adverse health outcomes from handling it, touching it, and even consuming foods directly in contact with it. And yet there are still things we would have missed even if we adopted this whitelisting approach. We would have never captured the problem of microplastics that we see today, the mechanical and chemical breakdown of plastics in the environment leading to far higher consumption and presence of it in our bodies could not have realistically been studied or predicted even if we took a whitelisting approach. Now you have to consider what the effects of whitelisting everything would mean for productivity and progress. Imagine how much more everyday things would cost if plastics had to be whitelisted before being allowed in any products. Even now knowing about the existence of microplastics, it isn't clear that the effects they have decisively outweigh the benefits of plastics.
    - jpgvm 4y ago
      First of all I am mostly talking about plastics in the context of food packaging. I would be more inclined to agree with your argument regarding progress/innovation if there were more novel plastics coming to the market for food packaging but that isn't really the case and there hasn't been anything ground-breaking since PET. Whitelisting at this stage of maturity isn't just the right thing to do, it's also easy and beats playing whackamole if you decide something needs to get phased out.
refurb 4y ago
Then what you end up with is Prop 65 - everything causes cancer. The right response is a risk-based approach. Nothing is every 100% safe, so it's not a reasonable filter. Basically each new product should be judged for the risk versus the benefit. If it can be easily substituted with a known safer product, then it's forced to go through testing. If there is no known substitute and the benefit is high, then it can tentatively be approved with follow up tests later.

ravenstine 4y ago

I guess we should never have outlawed the addition of lead to gasoline?

corrral 4y ago
That's an element. These are compounds. There are a lot more compounds than elements, and it's a lot easier to find one you can sub in to do the same thing. (yes, the lead in gasoline was part of a particular molecule, too—which just proves my point, if we'd outlawed the specific molecule/compound that would have opened the door to finding other technically-different ones that still included lead—but you can't exactly outlaw carbon, so that approach won't work this time)
- ravenstine 4y ago
  That's really moving the goal posts. Who's to say the fuel industry couldn't have chosen a different substance that's poisonous in some other way? It's fundamentally the same argument. Lead being a universally poisonous element just made the decision easy. I agree that bans can and probably often do backfire, but it's not as simple as either never banning things or instead whitelisting things to be allowed.
  - corrral 4y ago
    It's not moving the goalposts, the two actions are meaningfully different. Lead is basically always dangerous, so "no lead" is an easy call and has the desired effect. The lead, specifically, was causing the entire problem, and it'll keep doing so pretty much no matter how you arrange other elements around it. Some other compounds to replace it might be dangerous, but essentially every lead compound is going to be dangerous. Carbon compounds, meanwhile, are practically endless and there's no one quality you can point to and say "that, that right there is the problem, ban that part". Piecemeal bans won't work.
  - samatman 4y ago
    They did actually, it's called MTBE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_tert-butyl_ether#Regulation_and_litigation_in_the_U.S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_tert-butyl_ether#Regula....

georgia_peach 4y ago

There was a time--not too long ago actually--when the standards were waxed paper, parchment paper, and glass. Paper being biodegradable, glass being highly inert, and neither causing as much ecological devastation or endocrine disruption as plastic. So technically speaking, it's a solved problem. But from a market perspective, for the people who eat the glyphosate-dusted insulin resistance that's wrapped inside the plastic, i'm willing to bet the pseudoestrogens are the least of their worries.

suture 4y ago
The future will look unkindly at our present day pursuit of profits whilst ignoring negative externalities.
kongolongo 4y ago
When those materials were the standard we also didn't have a lot of the medical and technological equipment today that arguably reduced both mortality and morbidity across large swaths of a much, much larger population. Plastics are used widely in electronics and all of the accompanying tech improvements too it isn't just simple as packaging, so it isn't a "solved problem" if you want to go back to those materials and replace everything plastic has become standard for in today's technologies.
- georgia_peach 4y ago
  What does "pthalates in food packaging" have to do with medicine or technology? For food it is a solved problem. Also, #1 contribution to life expectancy has been public hygiene. Aside from antibiotics, all of the other medical interventions have been noise. https://sjbpublichealth.org/200-years-public-health-doubled-life-expectancy/ https://sjbpublichealth.org/200-years-public-health-doubled-... > the largest gain in life expectancy occurred between 1880 and 1920 due to public health improvements such as control of infectious diseases, more abundant and safer foods, cleaner water, and other nonmedical social improvements
- georgia_peach 4y ago
  The plastics, which might as well be considered solidified gasoline, are also a tremendous hazard in home furnishings[0]. The flame-retardants slow the burn a little, but still highly combustible compared to traditional materials. The science is pointing the finger at the same flame retardants for raising cancer rates among firefighters around 10% higher than the general population[1,2]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87hAnxuh1g8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87hAnxuh1g8 [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8403436/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8403436/ [2] https://www.sffcpf.org/news-post-2/ https://www.sffcpf.org/news-post-2/

Vladimof 4y ago

They could ban all additives except approved ones...

bcrl 4y ago

It's almost as if you want to remove externalities from the food supply chain...